So this evening we're in John 1 and the second half of verse 1 and verse 2. Let me just read the first couple of verses. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning. The Australian evangelist John Chapman was once rather sort of a brusquely challenge by one of the students at the University mission where he'd been speaking and he came up to him when writing a space and said, so have you ever seen God to which John Chapman replied, well I could have done if I'd been born on time. Which with John 1 open in front of us is a very good answer isn't it? You know if I'd just been born 2,000 years ago well I would have seen God. That's what John is telling us. Although of course the answers just perhaps slightly more complicated than that because at the very end of this introductory section the first 18 verses of John 1, we're told no one has ever seen God but God the one and only who is at the father's side has made him known. So God is invisible to us but for a short period of time through the only begotten the word may flesh. God could be seen in the person of Jesus Christ. Now but of course now we can't see him either he is back in heaven invisible again and at the very end of the gospel before you get to the commission to the church on page 1,090 you have the last word of the gospel proper in chapter 20 and Jesus says to Thomas, because you have seen me you have believed blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed and Jesus did many other miraculous signs and the presence of his disciples which are not recorded in this book but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that by believing may have life in his name. So no one has ever seen God but for a while they did see him the eternal word veiled in flesh but actually even seeing him requires that we see what is beyond sight you head around that. So for example last little introductory bit in chapter 2 you have the first of these miraculous signs and in verse 11 John explains to us that this is the first of the miraculous signs Jesus performed in Canaan a gallery he thus revealed his glory and his disciples put their faith in him so many people saw the signs and marveled at them but actually only the disciples saw what was beyond sight and therefore put their faith in Jesus and what we are being introduced to as I come finally to my test in verses 1 and 2 is the fact that actually the invisible eternal God has for a short time become visible in space and time so that we can know God. Now we looked at the first six words last week and really actually I'm going to look at this first when you look at two words tonight but there's a rising percent crescendo here the end of verse 1 it says in the beginning was the word and that word was with God the word was God that's the climax of these sort of crescendo and then sort of a recap the crescendo again he was with God in the beginning. John is clearly asserting that the word existed in all of eternity past but he goes further to assert that there existed a relationship within the Godhead even prior to the word becoming flesh God the father relation to God the son and as well see you of course later and the Holy Spirit 2 and now these are awesome concepts aren't we and we do well to approach them with a degree of reverence because John had to list up the curtain and gives us a glimpse into heaven into the eternal relationship to enter father and son and we stand on holy ground for in the space of two verses John has introduced us to the two central claims of the Lord Jesus Christ which calls so much offense during his earthly ministry and calls people offense today the first is that Jesus was none less than God himself he who has seen me has seen the father he says in John 14 verse 9 Jesus in effect is saying if you want to know what God is like well look at me that's incredible isn't it C.S. Lewis the famous quote you've heard before I'm an in captured it so well he said I'm trying to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Jesus which is that I'm ready to accept Jesus as a moral teacher but I don't accept this claim to be God he said that's the one thing you really mustn't say because a man who was a mere man and said the thought of things that Jesus said would be the devil of hell you need to make your choice either this man was and is the son of God or some mad man or something worse you can shut him up for a fool you can spit on him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher so here in these verses firstly there is this clear assertion that Jesus does nothing less than God himself and the second thing which people still stumble over today but it's right here at the beginning of the gospel and that is that he exists in this co-equal relationship between father, son and herds spirit what we call the Trinity now again as I've already mentioned we're already talking here about the word the son and the father at this point but we'll see a little bit later on that the herds spirit is included at the same level of divinity as the other two persons now it can maybe though you know you just had a tea and just coming here or what you just over taken you with all of these mind stretching concepts for a moment and at one level I just want to know so that's that's fine I think we should be a bit gobsmacked by the enormity of what's said about who Jesus is and how we relate to the Trinity past with the father and the son and yes there are depths that no person can completely fathom but there's actually also a simplicity to God's word so that as I was saying last week even as we paddle on the shore we can begin to marvel at the might of the ocean out there so I said I really just want to talk about two words tonight and the two words are with and was very exciting words and I want to think about what it means for Jesus to say that he was with God and the Jesus was God so let's just look at that the word was with God John asserts now the little Greek word there is a word that actually has a little bit more meaning than just our translation with it almost implies it's implies almost two words it implies a degree of intimacy the word was towards God he was in face-to-face contact with God he in a way that nobody else is able to do was face-to-face with God and it didn't burn him up with all the enormity of his brilliance now you wouldn't think that one fall at the word could be so pregnant and beating really would you but that word with actually tells us a lot about how the father and son yeah with Charles quite pregnant as well God was with him so Nicodemus we're told came to Jesus at night and said Rabbi we know that your a teacher has come from God for no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him Jesus also claimed to be equal with God in chapter five the Jews tried all the harder to kill him not only was he breaking the Sabbath they claimed but he was even going God his own father making himself equal with God and that word with tells us something of why he came his name was to be a manual Matthew tells us which means God with us and Jesus said of his own ministry you will you will always have the poor among you but you will not always have me with you he came to be with us for a little while but after his work is accomplished you were turned to be with his father so Jesus says in chapter seven I am with you for only a short time and then I go to the one who sent me to go back to be with the father as he was before he came into the world Jesus was only with us for a little while by contrast he promises in John 14 that the Holy Spirit will be with us forever I will ask the father he says and he will give you another council let's be with you forever so then it will work is very prevalent with meaning apologies the incarnation is a marvelous staggering thing Jesus was still with God even while he was with us for a little while but equally marvelous of course is the work of a spirit who continues his work with us even now he comes to work within us and do the same things Jesus did that's why the apostle Paul explains Christ in you the hope of glory for a short while the glory of God was seen on earth and one day believers will be with him in glory but for now his glory is in in and through us through the work for the Holy Spirit so as we move on to the second thing about Jesus not just that he was with God but actually also he was God which he speaks not so much about his relationship with the father but his identity that he is God himself now it's often been pointed out that you can't reverse the word order here we sometimes say don't we that it's true to say in the Bible God is love but you can't actually flip that around and say love is God although the hippies in the 60s try to you can't just turn the words around and similarly to say the word was God you can't actually flip that around and say God was the word because he's actually John is saying here that there isn't less to the son of God than the word but there is water God than the son on his own and get your head around that so for example one of the commentaries says he said the word was God not God was the word the latter would have meant that God and the word were the same they had appointed to an identity but John is leaving open the possibility they may be water God then just the word now again what is my problem you know why am I laboring this so much well actually the point is significant because if you've ever attempted a debate with the Jehovah's Witness on the doorstep you'll notice when they pull out their translation of John's Gospel it's this verse on which they make a lot of great claims about the fact that they believe that Jesus was a creature and not the son of God they want to persuade you that this verse has been mistranslated that it should read the word was a God and actually even some about translation such as the any B I think is mistaken to just put the word was divine because the word does not relate to God as a subordinate nor as a creative thing the word and God are equal now the apparent confusions around in this translation relates to a complicated grammatical rule and I mean it doesn't excite me and I'm quite convinced I won't excite you so I won't go into it too much but I can talk to you about it afterwards if you like but what will you want to say to the Jehovah's Witness when they knock on your door if you do try to have a conversation with them I mean the first is to say the actually translation from a Greek and distant point of view is grossly misleading they defend their translation not as a result of studying the grammar and disagreeing with previously held convictions rather the thing that the Jehovah's Witness does not tell you on the doorstep is that they originally use this translation because Johannes Grover's wife act as a spirit as medium back in 1956 and apparently got the interpretation hot from God so that's not how read particularly does it we just want 35 really by bringing out the past but you're not linguist I assume and even I so let's just look at the verse in the rest the context of John's Gospel for a minute and see what John seems to mean by this verse in verse two the next verse it says he was with God in the beginning the word was with God in the beginning John does not say which you would expect in to say if he just believed Jesus was a God that the word was the first created being no rather he assumes that the word has eternally been with God so actually the any biggest more helpful here what God was the word was the word is not make himself sorry the word does not buy himself make up the entire Godhead but nevertheless all a divinity belongs to Jesus and we find more illustrations than I've got time to tend to in the rest of the gospel let's speak about how Jesus assumed it he was divine for example when Jesus begins to pray the disciples in the future the church in John 17 he says in verse five and now father glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began or the Jehovah's Witnesses do without verse Jesus here assumed that he had equal glory with God before the incarnation and he'll go back to that afterwards and Jesus assumes many many times as we go through the gospel that his words and his deeds are the words indeed of God in Jesus we meet God so those are my two words with and was and what I want to do really is so we don't just strain to slightly hysterical the logical discussion to try and earth that little bit with a few thoughts by way of application the first is to say is that the word second first the Trinity is a the reliable revealer of God revelation is at the heart of Christianity God unveiling himself because actually we're all in the dark we're all ignorance John 118 is true no one has ever seen God and so you know when you have all these in the speculative debates on TV and on the radio and everybody says well I think you'll God like this or maybe like this or maybe like this the sum of human speculation is just useless because we cannot know God and there's God chooses to disclose himself no one has ever seen God but many people saw God revealed in the word made flesh this word we learn is none none other than the one who has been with God for all eternity he and only he has the credentials to unveil the otherwise unfathomable God he is God is equally as the father is God as equally as the Holy Spirit is God and it would read the nice and crude sometimes and just see how carefully our unpacks our understanding of who Jesus is and how he makes the Father known the second thing to say about the application is that the word is distinct from the Father and the Holy Spirit but united to them yet so I've already mentioned the fact the word is distinguishable from God and the doctrine of maturity is not an optional extra but it's essential really for our understanding of how we can know God but perhaps more practically I want to say to people that a key test of whether you are a believer or not is whether you worship Jesus and actually you want to reduce it down to the sort of the bare minimum when we're talking to Jehovah's Witnesses or even when we're talking to our Muslim friends do you worship Jesus? I'm not saying do you revere your respect and many people in other religions revere and respect Jesus but do you worship Him as God that's actually at the heart of what's been saying here and almost all theological error down the centuries has at some basic level either straight into the era that Jesus was not fully human or that he was not fully divine actually the Bible was consistent in affirming that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine and it's essential really for the sanctity of the gospel that we continue affirming both of these things. My third point and almost my last point is that God is independent of and over all that he has made and I suggested last week that from all eternity God had a desire to communicate God only had once and you made him a preacher which is a great relief to me that preaching has such a high credential and he has a word and he is the word so actually this God wants to unveil himself has chosen to make himself known and has done so through his eternal word so even within the Trinity though God relates to the sun and to the spirit in self-sufficiency if you like God chose to make himself known by sending his son not because he needs us like you know sometimes we need our pets or whatever but in order to disclose himself so that we might know him and John says so from his fullness we've all received grace so I wonder whether as you've been sitting either loud your mind to be stretched or possibly be blown back to eternity past to think about the relationship between father son and Holy Spirit up to the wonder of this God who still exists in try unity but also around at the sufficiency of this message for a world which is searching for love which is looking for God there's world around this needs Jesus there's a song that used to be sung in the 70s oh the world needs Jesus and actually that's true as of the heart of John's gospel there's much to stretch and excite us and such knowledge should lead us to worship theology should lead to doxology and I wonder whether in your prayer times and we're going to do this in our prayer time a minute whether you spend time as well as thanking him for the things that he's done for you as well as praying for other people how much of your time you allow and just meditating and worshipping God for who he is part of what our worship is all about is just being enamored with the person of God yes everything is done for us is wonderful but John gives us a glimpse into the eternal reality that the one who forever was God who was with God who came to be with us in all of that one day we might be with him it's great to go